“Once we’re anchored, I’ll go ashore to call upon him, then,” Lewrie decided aloud. “Perhaps he knows where Popham has got to.”
“Full fig, sir?” Westcott teased, noting Lewrie’s everyday uniform, minus his marks of honour.
“He’ll have t’take me as I am,” Lewrie scoffed.
“The place I have for you, Senhor Capitáo, is close to town and the shore … deep water, five fathom, no worries,” their hospitable local pilot was quick to assure Lewrie. “You could come ashore with me in my boat, and signal for your own when you have done with Senhor Gilbao. I can even show you to his house.”
“For that office, senhor,” Lewrie responded, striving for the proper difference between the Portuguese and the Spanish for señor, “I give you my heartiest thanks. Uhm … good dining in Funchal, is there?”
“The finest, Senhor Capitáo!”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Once ashore, the pilot gave him a quick tour of Funchal’s small downtown features, pointed out a couple of restaurants, an upper-class tavern where music was played nightly for the entertainment of patrons, a laundress’s house, a vintner and a ship chandler, and a discreet brothel which he swore had the greatest selection of pretty doxies in all Christendom! Lastly, he saw him to a mansion one street up above the town’s docks and quays, facing a spacious and shady plaza, where the Gilbao family resided, and did their business.
Lewrie plied the large and ornate door knocker, and the door was opened by a woman in maid’s togs, a quite attractive young woman with sloe eyes which belied her prim demeanour, costume, and black hair that was severely pulled back and rolled into a bun at the nape of her neck.
Lewrie almost felt the need to take a second peek at the entry-way, and the plaque which announced the offices of the British Consul in both English and Portuguese; the maid’s attractiveness made him wonder if he’d found that forementioned discreet brothel!
He announced himself; she cocked her head over in puzzlement. When he managed to pronounce Senhor Gilberto Gilbao, she brightened and summoned him in, steering him to a large parlour, then padded off to seek her master.
It was a huge house, perhaps a century or more old, but well maintained, and full of costly furnishings, musical instruments left on display as if their users were merely taking a break, and artwork hung in profusion on every wall of the grand parlour, or stood upon plinths in the corners. There was a cool and shady atrium beyond a row of pillars and fine sets of glass-paned French doors, with a cool fountain plashing in its centre, surrounded with planted or potted greenery and flowers. Servants crossed the atrium now and then, on cat feet, without a sound. Above, the upper storeys were railed with intricate ironwork, the uppermost shaded with white and yellow canvas awnings. The only sound he could hear was the tinkle of water in the fountain. It was almost uncanny. Costly as all Hell, but uncanny.
“Senhor Capitáo?” a well-dressed youngish fellow enquired, appearing from the opposite side of the wide entry foyer. “My pardons, but Concepcion has no English, and could not manage your name. I am Gilberto Gilbao, senhor. I serve as the British Consul for the Azores.”
“Captain Sir Alan Lewrie, of the Reliant frigate, Senhor Gilbao,” Lewrie told him with a smile, and a formal bow. “I was expecting to see Commodore Popham and his squadron in port, but missed him. I was told that Madeira was to be the assembly point.”
“Ah!” Gilbao said with an open-mouthed and cheerful grin. “Come this way, senhor, to my offices. Allow me to offer you refreshments, and I hope that I may fully inform you as to the whereabouts of your … incredibly energetic Commodore Popham.”
Gilbao’s offices were nigh as spacious as the grand parlour on the other side of the foyer, and just as expensively decorated. They took two upholstered chairs to either side of a low tea table, quite informally, rather than Gilbao behind his desk, and Lewrie plunked in front like a supplicant.
“Naturally, Capitáo Lewrie, all of Funchal took notice of your arrival in port,” Gilbao began as he tinkled a china bell for service. “As for Madeira being the assembly point for Commodore Popham, it was determined that the actual presence of his squadron, and his transport convoy, in harbour could be taken as a violation of Portuguese neutrality … a violation on our part of our own neutrality to the French. For that reason … reasons, rather … Commodore Popham only cruised close offshore as his transports arrived in dribs and drabs.”
“Oh Lord,” Lewrie groaned, sitting up straighter. “My bringin’ my ships into port could be deemed a violation, too? No one at Admiralty said a single word about that!”
To Lewrie’s relief, Gilbao threw back his head and laughed out loud, then looked at him with a merry grin.
“My dear Capitáo, could such a generous and hospitable people as we Portuguese deny mariners in need of succour entrée to our ports for firewood and water?” Gilbao amusedly posed. “As far as I can see, you have no hostile designs upon Funchal, or the Azores, you do not seem to be acting in any threatening manner to anyone as you convoy ships to somewhere else, which is of no consequence to Portugal, so, just what might the French or her allies have to complain about, or lodge a protest? Funchal is a neutral port, open to all.”
“When I called at Charleston, South Carolina, in the Spring, I got chapter and verse in high dudgeon from the French Consul there,” Lewrie told him. “Sail out within three days, or else … wait weeks before entering another American port … can’t lurk offshore beyond the Three Mile Limit?”
“The French once had a Consular representative here, but when the war began again in 1803, they ceased to pay him, so he resigned the office,” Gilbao said. “Ah! Concepcion! Will you have tea, or wine, senhor? From Lisbon, I recently received a cask of a splendid wine, very light, a touch sweet, and of a remarkable pale yellow tint. Most refreshing!”
“I will try the wine, upon your recommendation,” Lewrie said, secretly ogling the maid, who was casting shy eyes at him as Gilbao ordered wine for both.
“In point of fact, Capitáo Lewrie,” Gilbao went on as the maid departed to fetch the wine, “the English and the Portuguese people have always enjoyed the most amicable and mutually agreeable relations, in diplomacy, and in trade. We are a small nation, smaller than the British Isles, but have never possessed the large armies such as these of the French, or the Spanish in the old days. Neither did we ever have large fleets, not even approaching those of the Dutch, the Swedes, or the Danes. There is a general assumption that should any other power attempt to seize our colonies, even Brazil, or invade Portugal itself, our good friends the English would side with us, and come to our aid.”
“If only to have another good bash at the Frogs and the Dons,” Lewrie agreed with a laugh. “I am mortal-certain that did the French try to conquer Portugal, we’d be in it in an instant.”
Lewrie had never actually been to Portugal, but his father, Sir Hugo, had. Portugal was the only place that British debtors could run before their creditors could nab them and throw them into prison! Lewrie suspected that that was why the wine, port, and spirits trade had arisen in the long-agos; all those bankrupt British scoff-laws on their “skint bottoms” in need of a job, and quick profits! Why, most of the port in the world bore English brand names!
“You enquire about the whereabouts of Commodore Popham and his expedition, senhor?” Gilbao said. “He is bound for another Portuguese port on the coast of Africa, San Salvador.”
Lewrie had to shrug in ignorance; he’d never heard of it.
“It also is Portuguese,” Gilbao said with an airy wave of his hand, as if that was of no matter. “Any chandler in Funchal may sell you charts, including approaches and safe anchorages. It is a minor, out of the way place, you see? Of no interest to anyone.”